The Danger Games
by modestlobster
Summary: AU. After the Mutant Registration Act was introduced, anti-mutant legislators fought to take it one step further. Now, every year, one mutant from each state in the USA is chosen and forced to fight in a televised death match called The Danger Games. (Note: Plot inspired by THG, but no character crossover.) Chapter 4 coming soon. R&R
1. Chapter 1

It was then - when the armed guards shoved me into that dark armored-train compartment - that I knew my life was over.

"Hey _concierge_, I asked for a room_ with a view!_" I called out futilely, as the locks clanked shut.

The only response, however, was that of a subdued female voice, from somewhere in the darkness:

"…You're Robert, right…? They said your name was Robert Drake."

"The one and only." I sighed, stumbling into what I determined to be a plastic bed frame, as I blindly felt my way around the room.

"Though my friends call me 'Bobby'…" I added blankly, as I sat down on the thin mattress and itched at the edges of the inhibitor collar around my neck. I reached out with my other hand, toward where her voice had come from, but all it found was a solid wall.

"Bobby." She repeated quietly, her voice somehow drifting through the barrier.

I nodded, though I knew she couldn't see me. "And that must make you, uh… Miss California?"

"…Jubilation…"

"Uh, well yeah, it's a real pleasure meeting you," I shrugged, "But I've definitely had better days than this."

"No, you dweeb. My _name_ is Jubilation_… _Jubilation Lee."

"Oh."

And it was then - when lights suddenly burst in front of my eyes - that I knew my life was over.


	2. Chapter 2

It took me a few moments to register that the lights flashing before my eyes _weren't_ a sign of my imminent demise, but were instead a sign of solidarity faintly emanating from the fingertips of the young Chinese-American woman standing on the other side of the thick bullet-proof glass from me.

"It h-hurts... like h-hell..." Jubilation Lee gritted her teeth through the pain inflicted by the inhibitor collar, "But... if you... try h-hard enough... They s-still work..."

She continued straining - the light casting back on her features with an eerie glow - and watched me expectantly.

I realized what she was waiting for.

I held my fingers up to the glass so she could see them, and I focused my thoughts on the power - the 'gift', the curse - running through my veins. My _mutation_, which normally manifested itself reflexively; I'd never really had to _think_ about it before.

A sharp stabbing pain suddenly shot into the base of my neck and down my spine.

"It's o-k-kay..." She whispered hoarsely, as I winced and jerked against the sensation. "You c-can do it... B-Bobby..."

My brain hollered at me to stop, stop, _please just stop_. I ignored it as best I could, fighting back, willing my body to do what it knew it could do.

And that's when a few rogue ice crystals prickled out from my fingertips.

But I couldn't take it any longer. I had to stop.

The water-formerly-known-as-ice trailed down my hand, complemented by a few stray and salty drops that leaked out from the corners of my eyes.

Jubilee lowered her hand then, but I saw a faint smile on her lips before the darkness again swallowed everything up.

"So... You're an elemental..." She said, contemplating. "That's... pretty cool."

I huffed out a laugh. "Not a very good one though, by that sorry little display."

"Are you kidding me?" She huffed back. "You've seen what I can do, and I've had way more practice than you... I mean, I've been in solitary confinement for, like, 10 hours..."

Of course. She was the mutant tribute from California. Their reaping in downtown Los Angeles had kicked everything off at 6:30 on Saturday night, and then it was almost a half-day trip by train to Portland, for Oregon's reaping.

My reaping. Where _my _reaping took place.

"You'll be hanging icicles before we even get to Seattle." She lamented aloud, and I could hear her weight drop down onto her own thin bed mattress.

As if on cue, the train lurched into motion. And that was it.

_Goodbye, life. I won't be coming back._

I stretched out on my bed and sighed.

"You can cry if you want to... I won't tell anybody." Jubilation said after a few moments of silence. "...Huh, I guess that's another advantage to being the first in your train car."

"What's that?"

"Nobody sees you being weak... I mean, unless you're already blubbering when Emma Frost reads your name out on stage. Then you're pretty much screwed."

I hadn't really thought of it like that. Here I was, just going along for the ride - albeit the worst ride of my life... But Ms. Jubilation Lee obviously had been thinking and practicing strategy since the cameras found her in the crowd. Maybe long before that.

"I wonder how I looked..." I started thinking now about all the stats from the past five years, about how the tributes that lasted the longest in the Games were always the ones who racked up the most sponsors - from the very beginning.

"Mm... Stunned, a bit sleepy..." Jubilation admitted, then explained, "There's a projector thingy in here. It showed the official feed of your reaping. I guess we're gonna see everyone's."

"Another advantage of being first..." I suggested dryly.

The official coverage of the reapings and the Games themselves was practically mandatory viewing - as it was covered by every media outlet anyway, it was almost impossible to escape - but I had always looked the other way during the reapings; muted the TV, or took a week off sick from the firm where I worked. It was always bad enough watching the Games themselves; I never had the stomach for the survivor's guilt from seeing and hearing all the back-stories and the buildup in the weeks leading into the main event. The less I knew about the mutants killing each other on-screen, the easier it was to detach, pretend it was just television.

But now it was my reality.

"Hey, I wouldn't worry..." Jubilation continued her train of thought. "You'll totally get some interest from your reaping footage..."

"...Really?" I tried to think back on what was all just a blur. I couldn't remember doing anything that would excite anyone to put cash on my life.

"Uh, _duh_. Beautiful wife yelling out your name, holding your adorbs little baby... They'll be replaying that every time your name gets mentioned." She sighed wistfully. "_Everyone_ will want to bring you home to your family in one piece."

_Opal._

"Aw man..." I groaned. "Except none of that's true. She's just my girlfriend... And... her son..."

"He looked just like you." Jubilation said quietly.

"I know, but..." I shrugged in the darkness. It was complicated.

"_Omigosh_... They're not X-Genes, are they."

"...No." Neither Opal nor her son were mutants. It was _definitely_ complicated.

I heard Jubilee sit up on her bed; I could feel her staring at me. "But she _knew_, right...? _Before_ you got reaped?"


	3. Chapter 3

After Emma Frost escorted me off the Portland reaping stage, I was shoved into a little room to say my good-byes. Not that there were many; neither my parents nor any of my relatives were there - they all still lived in New York; my colleagues hadn't known I was a mutant, and most wouldn't risk being caught associating with me now that they did know (despite Oregon being a pro-mutant state); my friends who were mutants couldn't risk the attention, which might 'out' themselves (again, despite the prevailing positive West Coast attitude toward mutants and mutant rights, it was still better for most X-genes to keep quiet about their DNA); and my non-X friends were likely some combination of those same excuses.

Surprisingly, my boss was the first person to come in. It was several years ago now that I had had to disclose my registration status as a mutant to Karl Kerschl as part of my employment process. But he never made a big deal of it then, or later; he had kept it confidential the whole time - to the point that sometimes I wondered if he had forgotten. If he had, I guess he got a big ol' reminder this morning. He wasn't a sentimental man, but he gave my shoulder a hardy squeeze, and told me the firm would help me as best they could. I believed him, knowing that it would be more _him_ than the firm; and then he was whisked out the door. Gone.

My landlady took his place. She _sure was sorry and all_, and _wished me the best of luck, to be sure_. But she _just wanted to let me know_ that she was _already arranging for my belongings to be put in storage _and that they_ could be collected by any representatives of my estate once everything was all over_. She thanked me for _always paying the rent on time and in full and, well, I suppose that's it. Bye now, dear_.

And then, finally, it was a scene from _The Assassination of Opal Tanaka by the Coward Robert Drake_. Opal stood just inside the room, her bottom lip pursed up in a stout pout, arms fiercely wrapped around her son, Robert. (_I told you it was complicated_.)

I held out my arms.

She cautiously made her way over to me, but stopped short of my proffered embrace. As I took the next step closer - she slapped me.

"Why you didn't _tell me_..." Opal shook her head, exasperated. "What am I _supposed to do_?"

"I... didn't think..." I faltered, my brain still caught up on the stinging sensation across my cheek.

"No, you didn't; and _you don't_." She looked me in the eye; hers were red and puffy. "But you better _start_, Bobby. If you want to have _any hope_ out there, you better start _thinking_. Or make fast friends with someone else who does."

She let out a short sob then. "I don't even _know_ what you can _do_!"

They had collared me as soon as Emma Frost had called out my name, so I couldn't just show her.

Instead, I put my arms around her and little Robert; I kissed Opal's cheek and whispered into her ear, "You know those ice sculptures along my street every winter, that no ones knows where they come from..."

But then a buzzer went off. Guards came in. _Time's up._

_"Bobby!"_ She reached out, I felt her fingers touch my cheek for a moment, and then I was gone.

"Omigosh, Bobby... You _dweeb_. You've _gotta_ tell girls stuff like that _from the start_." Jubilation Lee scoffed loudly into the darkness. "...But at least you had someone to say bye to, I guess."

"Didn't anyone..." I trailed off.

"Nope. Sat with Ms. Frosty the whole time. She was kinda awesome to talk to, but it still made for a pretty awks 15 minutes." Jubilation tapped her foot against the far glass wall. "It's not like I don't have any friends, but they've all gotta watch out for their own skins; I don't blame 'em. And my parents died when I was a kid - _more _of a kid," She added snidely, as if preempting a counter-argument she had heard a hundred times before. "I swear, if they go the _'Little Orphan Jubie' _angle with me, I think I might puke."

"Well, on that appetizing note..." I'd never been able to eat anything on a reaping morning; the adrenaline always started as soon as I woke up, ready for fight-or-flight, and 'Bobby, the Bottomless Pit' seemingly dropped off the face of the Earth for the day. But now that I was wholly resigned to my fate, my stomach was returning. "Do we get a last meal or something?"

"Nah, looks like nothing special 'til we get to the training grounds..." She sighed, then added, "But there's a whole buncha protein bar things in the cabinets along the wall, though. Probably soylent green, but I guess we can't really complain, huh?"

I got up and started investigating in the dark, feeling along the wall until I found a catch to slide one of the cabinets open.

She went on, as I rummaged my way through, "There's cold ones in the bottom cabinet, and warm ones in the top... But they all taste the same. And I don't know if they replenish them, or if that's all we get until New York..." She paused as I re-closed the cabinet. "Then, if you keep going along, there's a little faucet..."

I pushed a button beside the basin I found at waist-height. I rinsed my hands, then splashed a bit of water on my face, thinking how useful this could be, if only I could use my abilities without passing out from the effects of the inhibitor.

"...And then down in the corner," Jubilation cleared her throat, "There's, um, a high-techy pull-out toilet: It makes the walls all opaque and sound-proof when you use it, which is like, thoughtfully conservative of them. Um, so..." She took a deep breath, then exhaled. "Yeah... Sorry, if I just talked your ear off. I do that sometimes. You know, when -"

"Jubilation?" I interrupted.

"Yeah?"

"Actually... It's nice. Thanks for being... so friendly." Then the small smile slowly dropped off my face, as I realized, "...Even though I guess you'll have to kill me later."

The sentiment hung heavily in the air.

"...Bobby?" She said after a few moments.

"...Yeah?"

"You better start calling me 'Jubes', or I _am_ gonna kill you. _Sooner_."


End file.
